I Believe I Can Fly
by Thunderman88
Summary: War with the Neuroi has lasted for thousands of years; now it's time for mankind to take the fight to the enemy's territory... space! Follow the Strike Witches while they join forces with the intrepid Spacenauts, as they climb on their rockets, and prepare to go where no man has gone before! Rated T for language and probable adult themes. Reviews are welcome!
1. Prologue

Yes, I know I have to update my other fics, so bear with me!

I don't own Strike Witches.

Prologue

_Aachen, Karlsland_

"Wing Commander Wilcke, I am pleased to inform you that your request to reactivate the 501st JFW has been approved by the top brass. Congratulations!"

Generalfeldmarschall Von Sperrle stood up and shook the hand of the young commander, with some kind of grumpy smile. A second later, he sat down again so quickly that the chair groaned.

"After the pleasantries, now I have to inform you that I have already received orders concerning your command. You are to relocate with all possible speed!" he said officially, shuffling the papers before him on the desk.

At Minna's formal request of clarification, he added : "You are to report to Colonel Toftoy, Liberion Army Air Force, at Vanderberg Base, for duty."

_Vanderberg USAAF Base, United States of Liberion_

And so, the reformed 501st JFW arrived, in a sunny day of summer, on the land of the self-proclaimed 'Arsenal of defense'. During the transfer, they had many chances of being shocked by the lack of destruction, rationing, and almost everything that was commonplace in their homes, except maybe Fuso.

When the truck stopped, no one had time to say or do anything proper or else, because a tall, serious-looking officer was there waiting for them. On his epaulette the silver eagle of colonel was proudly shining under the merciless sun of the desert.

While her command was trying to get in some form of military order, Wing Commander Wilcke strode forwards and saluted : "Wing Commander Wilcke, Commanding Officer of the 501st Joint Fighter Wing, reporting for duty!"

The colonel returned the salute, then offered his hand to shake. "Welcome, Wing Commander, and all of you. We are glad to have you on board on this!"

"Exactly what this would be?" Lucchini, already bored, said lowly enough, or so she thought; Toftoy gave her a smile, startling her, and answered : "That would be classified, but you'll know, since you'll be part of our program."

He opened his arms, motioning around him, and proclaimed : "What you are seeing is the base of the program that gives us promise to finally finding a way to end this war once for all!" Stunned silence.

"It might be difficult to understand," the colonel added, "but the object of our work here is to take at last the war to our enemies, and try to understand their ultimate nature. Don't ask me for details, because they tell me I'm boring. I will ask our SC to meet with you and explain things better!"

After this, he offered to show them their quarters, which they gladly accepted. Still they wondered who or what the SC was.

As they strode in the middle of the place, four men in civilian attire attracted their notice. One was taller than the others, and was by far the younger of the group; another was instead bulkier, while not being fat; the third and the fourth were instead visibly older, one being almost completely bald, and his toothbrush moustache was as gray as the last man's hair.

Toftoy said : "Well, now you made acquaintance with the Tetrarchy!" Noticing their puzzled glares, he quickly said : "That's how we call them, because they work on the same level, without being hierarchically disposed. Quite an achievement, but that's good, I guess. Better than hear them bickering all day!"

When they reached a brand-new set of barracks, Toftoy stopped. "Here you are. This will be your home for some time; you are free to get it as comfortable as you wish. I must go now, but I will send the SC to you so they might explain you what exactly we are trying to do here, and what will be your mansion." And he took his leave.

The mysterious demeanor was more than enough to occupy all thoughts while everyone was settling down. This of course didn't prevent Erica to be as sloppy as ever, and Barkhorn to start yelling at her to be more like a Karlsland officer ought to be.

Such usual pleasantries were cut short by someone knocking on the door. After receiving permission, nine officers came in. Officers they were, because they were in uniforms (all different), yet they were all boys. The youngest at most was sixteen years-old, while the oldest looked more or less like eighteen years-old.

They stopped in the middle of the common space and saluted. The one in the middle, black hair and a serious, competent look on his face, took one step forward. "I am Captain Amedeo of Savoia of the Sovrana Aeronautica Romagniana, and I would like to present the rest of our Spacenaut Corps!"

"_Spacenaut_?" the girls all asked themselves. Minna assented, and Amedeo pointed to his right. "Those are Flight Lieutenant Jeremy Tiberius, from Britannian Air Force..." The boy, rather short and small, with big green puppy eyes, gave a hesitant, shy smile. "Sublieutenant Pavel Yegorov, Imperial Army of Orussia..." Much taller and massive, the blonde boy kept his crystal eyes high while saluting formally. "Flying Officer Thomas von Schlanders, Karlsland Air Force..." The only move the perfectly neat officer with perfectly combed and longer than it should have been blonde hair gave was the slightest nod in acknowledgment. "Flying Officer Alain Berger, Free Gallian Air Force..." A toothy smile was the answer to that, with a casual wave of the boy's long dark curls.

The Romagnian officer then pointed to his left. "Here we have First Lieutenant Walter Matthau, Liberion Army Air Force..." The cocky, lanky officer gave a thumbs-up. "Lieutenant Jonathan Glenford for the Navy..." With hair so short it could be barely made up from the skin, the boy made a photogenic smile. "Pilot Officer Valentin Grissom, Faraway Land Air Service..." A polite nod was the only reaction from the shortest yet composed boy. "And, last but not least, First Lieutenant Alexander Leonard, another reject from the Liberion Army..." The grin trembling on the speaker's lips had long prepared them for a parting shot.

"HEY!" was the loud protest from the serious officer, as stern as his seventeen years could make him, and the pilots gave short laughs. "Don't worry, Alex, we know how much you're worth!" Amedeo reassured him nonchalantly, and turned to face the Witches again. But just then, Lucchini spoke up.

"You're... Captain Savoia? That means you're..." Her teammates had never heard her so hesitant or so uncertain. The Romagnian boy sighed and closed his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose.

"Yes, my full name is Amedeo Francesco Umberto di Savoia, and I would be the second cousin of Duchess Maria of Romagna, not to mention heir to the throne of the Duchy of Venezia. But I am not here as royalty, I am an officer like everyone else. And I would be grateful if I were to be treated as such!" His powerful glare left them virtually no choice.

"Of course!" they assured, and he relaxed visibly, returning to his more amiable tone.

"Now, about the qualification we told you about... we are spacenauts, or we are going to be soon enough, we hope!" He briefly laughed at his own small joke, then he went on. "Basically, it means we're going into space!"

Before anyone else spoke, one harsh comment was heard in the room. "That's impossible!" Of course it came from Perrine, who had crossed her arms, and was now wearing a really acid glare.

Amedeo nodded towards her. "Your reaction is understandable, it is really a big leap. Yet, while our technology is basically primitive, and we are moving into a completely new territory, the theory is already quite solid. Add another occurrence, and it'll become clear that we are neither madmen neither lunatics!" His colleagues nodded solemnly.

The Gallian witch was visibly annoyed. "Then I'd be grateful if you were kind enough to stop speaking with riddles and explaining to use how exactly are you getting into space and what is this 'occurrence' you spoke of! I thought that the scion of a royal house would know more of courtesy!"

For a split second, a really uncomfortable silence settled in the room, as the Romagnian officer glared at her in such a manner that Perrine immediately regretted having spoken so harshly.

Then, he moved towards a window, and motioned for everyone to come near. Producing a pair of binoculars, he pointed outwards and said : "There. This is how we'll soon reach space!"

Minna was the first one to look in the binoculars. She furrowed her brow. "What are those?" She was seeing long, cylindrical shapes erected in a distance, flanked by some kind of supporting towers.

Von Schlanders explained : "You are looking towards the launch complex for the Redstone launch vehicle... the Redstone rocket!" He had added the last sentence when he had seen the dumbfounded looks on the witches' faces.

Yoshika exclaimed : "Rockets?! Are you using rockets? But... I thought those were only for... writers!"

Instead of the laughter she expected, the spacenauts smiled and nodded. "That's what we thought, too! But now, after having been introduced to the Tetrarchy, we changed our minds!" Alex said cheerfully.

"Perhaps you would like to see a model of the rocket and of its payload!" suggested Valentin when they were done sightseeing. They turned around, and saw in his left hand a small model of the rocket, a tall cylinder topped by a cone-shaped structure. "It's the protective canopy for the capsule. After the rocket reaches space, it will fall off, and reveal the capsule beneath!" And he lifted his other hand, on which there was a model of a hybrid between a sphere and a cone, with two or three antennas protruding.

"This is the model of the Vostok spacecraft on which we'll fly!" sentenced solemnly Yegorov, and looking at the surprised look on Sanya's face, smiled : "Yes, since it was designed by the team of Dr. Korolov, it was given an Orussian name. Quite appropriate, if we think we launch towards the east!"

"This still doesn't explain anything!" Perrine interrupted the show. "I am not an expert of rocket engineering, but I heard it was really difficult, and it was about these rockets used against the Neuroi on the battlefield. How it is humanely possible to build such a large rocket, put on top of it a capsule with a... spacenaut, and then hope it reaches space without exploding or shutting down? The technology level is not high enough to provide this!"

By the looks on her friends' faces, she had scored a point. While all this was interesting, it didn't explain how it was feasible. Amedeo pouted, and said : "You are absolutely right, Flying Officer Clostermann! Our current technology is capable of building such a rocket, but lacks capability of producing a fitting control system. In an uncontrolled launch, such a vehicle would undoubtedly fail."

He paused, then exhaled and said : "But where technology fails, something else might succeed. Like magic!" And he lifted his right hand, and a light blue aura emanated from it. Gesture and aura emulated by his fellow officers, all serious-looking now.

For four seconds, silence.

Then... "WHAT?!"

Post Scriptum

Some explanation.

Someone may found it preposterous I'm going to switch the space programs of the 60s in the mid-40s, but I thought that making them magicians would make up for the technology.

The nine magicians are equivalent to astronauts and cosmonauts of the USA and the URSS :

Amedeo di Savoia = split between Yuri Gagarin and Vladimir Komarov

Jeremy Tiberius = German Titov

Alexander Leonov = Alexei Leonov

Valentin Grissom = split between Valentin Bondarenko and Virgil "Gus" Grissom

Thomas "Tommy" Von Schlanders = Donald "Deke" Slayton

Pavel Yegorov = split between Pavel Popovich and Boris Yegorov

Alain Berger = Alan Shepard

Walther "Wally" Matthau = Walther "Wally" Schirra

Jonathan Glenford = John Glenn

Others may come in later chapters.

Basically, the idea behind my fic is this : male magicians are way rarer than witches (in fact they were discovered just now), and have a different kind of magic, less suitable for fighting, more suitable for more durable, controlled efforts, like space travel. I'll elaborate in the next chapters.

And yes, the name of Wally is a pun on the name of the great actor, Walther Matthau, which I greatly appreciate! I simply couldn't resist!


	2. Chapter 1

Chapter 1 : A Difficult Task

_Vanderberg USAAF Base, Liberion_

If there was a moment in Amedeo's life when he was overwhelmed by many dissonant voices, raging all around him, this was it.

He couldn't make up who was saying what, and his expression slipped a bit, going from serious and solemn to surprised and uncertain. Such a reaction from the witches wasn't on his plans; he darted a look around, and saw the same expression on his fellow spacenauts.

After a split second more of confusion, he managed to regain his spirit and raise a hand; the noises slowly died down, to be substituted by skeptical (in the case of Lucchini and Erica) or furious (in the case of Minna and Perrine) glares.

He whistled lowly. "Whew, I didn't see that coming! I figured it would come as a shock that witches aren't any longer the only human subjects capable of manipulating magic, but still..."

He trailed off, unsettled. Johnny Glenford took over, mercifully.

"It's just a recent discovery, and it's still kept under wraps. You should feel honored to be amongst those who know, before we go public!"

His tone took aback the girls. "Well, excuse me, but I still think it's really impossible! It was established a long time ago that..." Perrine's best haughty monologue was cut short by the young Liberion officer.

"What we are trying to say here, miss, is that it was recently discovered that some males potentially have the ability to manipulate such powers, albeit in a completely different way. And it was also established by the scientist that the incidence on the total male population is more or less far inferior to those of witches on female population. There are, what, thousands of potential Withces in the world? Well, they told us that statistically we may be no more than a few hundred!"

Johnny had spoken calmly yet forcefully. Such an explanation was enough to deflate the situation. Even the Gallian girl seemed somewhat shaken.

"Our powers are different than yours, meaning that we cannot go fight the Neuroi like you do. They tried that, but we failed. We can't produce such energy for flying and fighting constantly for minutes or even for a few hours, not for our life!" Pavel added matter-of-factly.

Taking a step forward, Alain told them : "What however we can do is to essentially function as efficient, reliable control towers for a myriad of systems and subsystems of any kind; thanks to this!"

And he produced from his back what seemed like a chest plate, made of a silvery metal. It had a complicated design of cables and small valves of the same material, and three short metal cables that ended in tiny, silvery needles.

"This is the Control Plate. It serves more or less the same purpose as your Striker Units, the only difference being that, instead of concentrating our magic to let us fly and fight the Black and Reds, it concentrates it to allow us to control those babies out there like an orchestra leader!" the young Gallian explained.

"And, instead of your stuff, it also hurts. Not just a little." Jeremy intervened in a low voice. The other boys grimaced and nodded, Wally meaningfully touching his chest.

Minna walked up and looked down at the plate, to which Alain offered it to her to examine. She looked it over, turning it over and glaring it with her brow furrowed. Then she spoke up. "Is this really capable of doing all that?"

"Theoretically." answered Alexander. "But we got it down just recently; when we first started training in the simulator, a mock-up circuit similar in complexity to the one of the rocket, we kept failing. Which in reality would mean an abort, if we're lucky..."

"...Or sudden death if we aren't!" finished Amedeo, very seriously.

"Or, if we get a super bad day, a slow, painful agony!" Valentin added, with such a neutral smile that everyone glared at him, more than a little worried. "But if that happens, it will be the decision of the Lord!" he elaborated, and his colleagues groaned.

"Yeah. Little warning here : don't get nowhere near a church with him around, or he'll hole up there for hours to pray!" The tone of Alexander's voice was telling, as he pointed his friend above his shoulder; Valentin didn't seem bothered, though.

Amedeo grabbed the rocket model. "Anyway, if the next test flight is successful, Alain will be the first one to ride the Vostok." The Gallian straightened up, obviously proud. "Too bad that, together with the next three flights, it will be only a 15-minute flight. Suborbital!" the Romagnian said.

"Yeah! We shot upwards, we stay in space for six minutes, take it or leave it, and then we fire the retro rockets and we plunge down again! What a ride!" Wally scoffed, evidently less than happy.

"I am scheduled to be the second, after Alain. Then it will be Amedeo and Wally. By then the Tetrarchy should have finished work with the orbital rocket, the R-7, and we will engage in orbital, multi-day missions!" the Faraway Land officer said calmly. The witches wondered why he wasn't displeased as the others to not being able to fly in orbit.

"And when we do get up, we'll need your help, because this is the reason you were called. We'll need the best here, and your Wing is the best Fighter Wing in the whole planet!" Pavel announced solemnly.

Amedeo strongly nodded, and came up towards Yoshika, who during the whole exchange had just stood there, completely silent. "Precisely! We are going to need the best Fighter Wing in the world to protect us, if we are right to assume that the Neuroi won't like it when it gets crowded up there!" he approved, glancing down at her and smiling warmly at the same time.

And, as if the smile itself had conveyed the concept much better than the words, or it had a completely different meaning, all the Witches suddenly felt a hot surge up in their faces.

And all the other boys(not the adamant Valentin), snorted loudly.

_Launch Site 5, Vanderberg USAAF Base, Liberion_

"Ok, let's hope this one works all right!" burst out Tommy, impatiently waiting for the white rocket with black strips to end his consuming anxiety.

Lynnette looked over at him. "Now why is that?" she enquired.

Amedeo squirmed uneasily. He sighed, and answered pouting : "The last one was guided by me; however, there was a mistake in the setting of the turbo-pumps, which are quite tricky by themselves. They were overdriven, so the rocket rose too steeply far too quickly; to the point that it triggered a capsule abort when it run out of LOX. It did return safely, but the acceleration/deceleration forces were far too great, almost 15 _g_; had one of us been aboard the capsule, he would have blacked out... or worse!"

Johnny nodded with a serious air and crossed his arms, declaring : "That's why we are launching this one; had it gone well, we would have proceeded with Alain's flight."

Valentin didn't say anything. In fact, he was there with the others and the girls only partially, the other part being with the rocket and the mock-up capsule that housed a mannequin, "Ivan Ivanovich" as Pavel had jokingly baptised him. The Control Plate strapped on his chest communicated with the other tied to Ivan's chest, and the needles were planted so that each would be in contact respectively with the coronary plexus, one subcostal nerve and the solar plexus. It was creeping the girls out, but the other spacenauts were more or less familiar with it already.

"All systems show green. We are go for ignition!" The announcement by the deep voice of Doctor Sergei Korolev, Orussian member of the Tetrarchy and current flight director, made everyone's tension build up more than a bit.

Valentin, his movements oddly slow, said neutrally : "Response is positive. Confirm go!"

"T-minus thirty... mark!" The young Liberion technician who announced the countdown was visibly shaken; sweat was already running down his temples.

Amedeo confidently crossed his arms and exhaled. Tommy (as the young Von Schlanders was known, much to his resignation before Liberion's informal approach to life) bit his lower lip. Alain was muttering something in Gallian. Pavel didn't even flinch.

"10... 9... 8... 7... 6..."

As the countdown went on, Minna found out her fingernails were planted in the seat she was standing behind. Yoshika couldn't tear her eyes from the bunker's small window.

"5... 4... 3..."

The oldest of the Tetrarchy, Doctor Robert Goddard, was muttering under his breath : "C'mon, c'mon..."

"2... 1... **ZERO**!"

An almost otherwordly sound filled the relatively small concrete bunker, as the rocket seemed to shiver under the thrust of its engine.

"We have ignition..."

After an interminable moment in which it remained there, the rocket, finally released, unleashed his power and surged skywards.

"...And we have liftoff!" The voice of the technician was clearly more relieved.

The girls barely believed their eyes as they craned their heads backwards, looking at the missile proudly gaining altitude, leaving behind a barely visible trail.

Valentin, his brow now furrowed in concentration, said : "The pumps are working well. All systems are go!" The mood in the bunker was now evidently more positive; some smiles could already be felt, and the four doctors were visibly more relaxed.

"We are still go!" approved Korolev, nodding his round head.

"Environment of the capsule holding at 5.5, trajectory is okay!" a technician piped up, now openly smiling.

Outside the rocket was already out of sight. "That was amazing!" stated Erica. Which meant a lot, if even her sleepy self had taken notice of that.

Barely after a minute, someone barked : "Engine shutdown!"

The same Liberion guy said : "Confirming regular tower jettison... and spacecraft separation!"

Amedeo turned towards the witches. "Well, it seems our Ivan Ivanovich made it to space!" And he gave a thumbs up.

As statements and instructions flew around the bunker, it flew past their minds that so far everything they had been promised was true : albeit unmanned, a capsule had been propelled by a rocket into space.

It came as a surprise when they heard : "Retrofire in three... two... one... **retrofire**!"

Alexander gave a crooked smile and said : "Now comes the good part! Ivan Ivanovich will have the ride of his life!"

"We confirm regular retrofire. Retro package now jettisoned!" Korolev and his colleagues nodded. That was crucial, especially for longer orbital mission; a spacenaut couldn't rely on anything else to come back home if those failed.

"Flight, we're approaching reentry window!" the technician said, much more collected this time. Something similar to the launch's tension had crept again in the bunker, as the smiles had been wiped off.

Confused, Perrine turned towards the Romagnian captain, who explained : "With launch, reentry is the most critical part of the flight. You have to do a precise burn, otherwise you either go down like a stone and burn up, or else you get bounced into an higher orbit and run out of consumables. Not a pleasant way to leave this valley of tears!"

Valentin, somewhat more like his normal self, announced : "We have loss of communication." As expected, the ionized atmosphere surrounding the reentering spacecraft was impregnable to transmissions.

"You mean you can't talk to someone when he return to Earth? That's terrible!" Lynette said a little too higher than she had meant to. Everyone glared at her, and she blushed.

Amedeo laughed grimly and shook his head sadly. "If only that would have been all the terrible we face! You'll soon see!"

Post Scriptum

Right now I'm following the schedule drafted for the Mercury manned program; initially the seven astronauts should all have a suborbital run as a dress rehearsal, then it settled down for four Redstone launches, further reduced to two after Gagarin's and Titov's flights.

So, basically, the girls will have to protect launches and re-entries from the Neuroi. This is their duty, as of now.


	3. Chapter 2

Chapter 2 : Push Me Through The Edge

_Vanderberg USAAF Base, Liberion_

"Sorry, but no discussion here. You know the reason we brought you here, and you can't serve your purpose while yawning like hippos. So, please get to sleep!"

Another chorus of protest was heard behind the door, and the eight spacenauts exchanged some amused looks. Tommy had preposterously lifted an eyebrow in mock surprise, and Wally was openly smirking.

The noises became resigned, and soon subsided. And, a second later, a dejected Amedeo came out of the door and carefully closed it. "Damn... fangirls!" he mumbled irritatingly.

As the boys made their way out of the building, the Romagnian received some nudges more explicit than verbal requests. He sighed and said : "First they don't believe a word and think we're crazy, then they assist to an unmanned launch and suddenly they're jumping all over the place!"

The smirks resurfaced again, summoned by the complaining and dejected tone of their friend. "Like us, they're not here to do some tourism! They're here to do a job, and they can't do it if they haven't got a good night's sleep before! Is it so difficult to understand?"

Alexander let out a snigger, which under Amedeo's quick murderous glare he quickly turned into a fit of cough.

Any comment he would have liked to make were forbidden by Alain's arm, that found its way around his shoulders. "Relax, _mon ami_. They may be excited, but they're no amateur; they'll get the job done. I have the utmost faith in them!" The Gallian's tone was light, yet serious enough. Amedeo exhaled and nodded.

"If you say so." He stretched his tired body and grimaced. "God, I'm stiff!"

"As stiff as that?" Came Pavel's comment, while he pointed to the looming figure, in the distance, of the rocket that the next day would carry a man into space, even if for less than six minutes.

_Launch Complex 5_

As Alain slowly made his way inside the spherical capsule, Amedeo helped him to his seat. The same seat that, after reentry, would hopefully bring him far from the capsule and make him land separately and safely; the Tetrarchy wasn't still sure about the landing system, and some precautions weren't out of order.

The Gallian, now seated, nodded and gave a thumbs-up. His backup smiled and grabbed his gloved hand. "_À__-Dieu-va__!_" he said solemnly, getting an even wider smile out of the fellow spacenaut. "_Merci beaucoup__, spaghetti!_" came the joking reply.

The Romagnian officer crawled out and got on his feet again, watching with a curious sense of apprehension as the pad crew began to close the hatch and tighten the bolts. To not dwell in such an ominous feeling, he looked around, and saw through the beams of the tower, high in the air, the 501st already in position, ready to intercept any Neuroi attempting to disrupt the launch.

Nodding, he took out the walkie-talkie on his hip and said : "Backup to launch control. Spacenaut in the capsule, environment sealed and holding. Over."

Doctor Von Braun's voice creeped over the loop. "Very good. Evacuate the tower. Over."

"Roger that, about to evacuate the tower." Amedeo put down the radio, and said : "Ok, guys, let's get the hell out of here! Monsieur Alain here has a job to do, and we're blocking his way!"

_Control Center_

On the capsule-ground loop, Tommy (the current CAPCOM) could make out a nervous humming of the _Marseillaise_. He sighed and rubbed his nose; if he himself was nervous, what about the poor guy in the capsule? He would take the fall if something went south.

A bright flash made him jump a little, then scowl. "_Herrgottsacrament!_" he muttered not quite under his breath. While it had been predicted that the base would be swarming with reporters and photographers, it didn't mean it wasn't annoying as hell.

The announcement that on that day a joint project was going to send a man into space had made the public going ballistic. Amongst the many voices of disbelief, denial and doubt, it could be understood, it could be heard the unspoken question : "Why?"

The answer could be only one : to help finish the job and get rid of this annoying Neuroi. Alain couldn't do anything yet apart from peeking from the periscope, but the incoming orbital flights would allow a good eyeball from above.

"_If everything goes well!"_ Tommy found himself thinking. He set his jaw even more firmly.

_In the air_

"We have ignition... and we have liftoff!"

As the Redstone soared, Yoshika felt relieved. The boys had tried to behave nonchalantly, but they could understand the pressure they felt; a failure would have yielded too terrible of a consequence for them to consider.

She was thinking on those lines as she was scanning the sector before her to spot any Neuroi. Her Type 99 cannon was ready to shred any Neuroi to pieces.

"HERE THEY COME! ENEMY SPOTTED!" came the roar from Charlotte.

They quickly changed disposition, concentrating their numbers towards the incoming enemy, but without exposing the opposite flank. Their weapons ready, they waited for the Neuroi to close in, preparing for the kill.

But two things happened : the first, they identified it as a Medium-type (unusual, and which meant it hadn't come from other continents), and the second, it suddenly stopped moving forwards; instead, in an almost vertical motion, it began to gain altitude.

"Enemy is not closing in! It's maintaining distance, but it's gaining altitude!" barked Minna over the loop, as they struggled to catch up.

After a few incredulous moments, Von Braun asked : "Is it keeping level with the rocket?" Minna looked over her shoulder, and a quick glance was enough to answer that.

"Affirmative!"

Amedeo's voice piped up; he had obviously been listening in. "In that case, it means it's not here to try and bother us. It's merely scouting and gathering information!"

"How is it possible? Shouldn't they try to blow up anything that goes into space?" was Barkhorn's question, quite ragged as the rapid climb began to take its toll.

"One thing we know about 'em, they're not stupid. They probably guessed Alain's not going to make it into orbit, and that's where the true danger to them lies. The day we try to get one of us there, they'll come, gun blazing and all. But I say that today the guy's not here to fight!"

The reasoning was undoubtedly sound. And it was also comforting, since the witches couldn't catch up with the Neuroi as it rose in par to the rocket. Not that it would have mattered : in a few second more, the Redstone would have reached Mach-1, and safety from all kind of attacks.

In fact, as soon as the condensation cloud from the rocket could be made up, the Neuroi stopped in mid-air, hovered for two or three seconds, then turned around and went home.

"Confirm enemy is going back. Guess you were right, Amedeo!" Minna breathed again.

_Space above the Launch Complex_

"Ok, reentry! Let's see how I fare compared to Ivan Ivanovich!" Alain's voice was not only confident, it was filled with something not much different from _joy de vivre_. Anyone presented with such a sight of the Earth would have felt the same.

As the radio fizzled down, the capsule began to shook. The spacenaut's eyes were transfixed on the indicator that told him how much _g_'s he was experiencing.

The needle went over eight. Alain breathed with some difficulty.

It flickered above the number '10'. The Gallian was by all means glued to his seat; his eyes were beginning to play some small tricks on him.

The needle hesitantly trembled to the right. Alain confusingly noted that this was the deceleration's peak.

Gradually, almost without his noticing, the shaking became less violent, his limbs became his to control once more, and the radio was functioning again.

"Ok, that was rough! But I'm still go!" The boy could almost feel the relief in the center right now.

Alain kept track of the altitude. When it dropped to about 7'000 meters, he instinctively tensed, waiting for ejection. A revolutionary feature, maybe, but the simulations of such a thing was enough to wipe the spacenauts' smiles from their faces.

Yet it went without a hitch. The hatch was blown off, and the seat propelled him away from the spacecraft, whose parachute was about to deploy. A sharp tug, and Alain found himself swinging from his own chute.

In the ten minutes that it took him and his orange-colored spacesuit to get down to the dry desert ground, he had barely enough time to elaborate the fact that the mission was over, and that he was safe and sound. When his legs finally connected with the solid earth, he felt so much lighthearted that he almost hugged Amedeo, which as backup had come to retrieve him and the capsule (or to provide assistance in case of a landing mishap).

"WHAT A RIDE!" His joyous scream was so loud that the witches hovering above them (part of procedure, because it was thought that a Neuroi might want to try and bag the spacenaut on landing) exchanged explicit glances.

_Vanderberg USAAF base, Liberion_

While the world wondered (as the cultivated Tommmy had said gravely) and lavished praise and honors on the first veteran spacenaut (he knew that, on returning in his homeland, he would become a Knight of the _Legion d'Honneur_), the Tetrarchy privately celebrated the first solid success of the space program, and the 'brave, bold officers that have propelled mankind towards a new era' (as an inventive guy from a Liberion newspaper had qualified them) gathered around their exalted and almost unable to narrate friend, as he went over all details of his flight, over and over again.

And it was a given that the most attentive, in his quiet and calm way, would be Valentin. Because merely three weeks after Alain's successful 'champagne popshot' (the term was minted by an elated Wally, causing an unanimous roar of sincere laughter) it would be his turn to get in space for a few minutes.

_Above a point 300 miles downrange the Launch complex, Liberion_

"The capsule is stabilized. No movements." Valentin's tone had never changed once during the mission. Not even when it was the moment to peek through the periscope, sighting reported with the usual calmness, and that had caused no small irritation amongst his fellow colleagues down on Earth.

"I currently am at about... 10'000 meters. Descent rate is about..." A sudden and completely unexpected explosion interrupted him. And before his surprise had subsided enough for him to understand what the heck was going on, his seat blazed to life, and he found himself hanging from his life on a higher than anticipated altitude.

And this time the tone of his reports did change. "Roger, the ejection system just fired. I'm out of the capsule!"

No one would ever know if the Center crew was more shocked by the new itself, or by the surprise and consternation in Valentin's voice. "How is that possible?" came the weak protest of Doctor Oberth, his eyes wide amongst the wrinkles.

The CAPCOM (Amedeo) hurriedly asked : "What's your situation? How is your suit coping with this?"

Faster than his normal rate, the Faraway Land officer replied : "It's holding for now. Environment and oxygen are still go." Then, as the _coup de grace_ to the already exceptional modd, he exclaimed : "What the heck just happened?"

_Quarter buildings_

"That was scary!" Lucchini's exclamation was met by dirty looks by the boy.

"Gee, we hadn't noticed!" The sarcasm dripping out of Alexander's comment could have choked them.

Pavel was quick to try and restore the calm. "Calm down. Valentin is safe, and this is what counts. Any problem arising in the plate or in the system can be dealt with before the next launch!"

Uncharacteristically, Amedeo burst out : "I hope so! I don't want to go up if I am to exhale my last breath coming back down!" The surprised looks he received made him sigh and wave his hand. "I'm sorry, I'm just surprised; I know something was meant to malfunction, sooner or later, but... it's still a shock!"

"Not as big as the one we've brought you!" The voice of Doctor Goddard was as serious as the faces of the four leaders of the project, unexpectedly joining them.

At the Romagnian's quizzical look, Goddard explained : "First of all, don't worry, we've already got guys working on the seat. It won't act up again. Then, we have a pretty serious announcement to make!"

He glanced at Korolev, who sighed and said, almost apologetically : "Given that, except for this minor malfunction..." Valentin glanced at him but said nothing. "...the missions were largely successful, we came to a conclusion. We unanimously decided to scrub the other two suborbital mission, and to go with the orbital flights."

Amedeo was immediately on his feet, his eyes as wide as small plates. "WHAT?" he screeched.

The Orussian engineer held his shocked gaze. "You heard me. The R-7 rocket, while troublesome, is ready for man-rating, and I'm sure you'll be able to make it behave. Moreover, as you know all the headway we have is measured on the amount of money we can squeeze out of our countries. And I'm afraid that the sensation of those two flight is already waning; sending you in orbit will keep interest high."

For a few seconds, everyone fell silent. Then, Wally jumped up and, grabbing his Romagnian friend from behind, he yelled : "HA HA! THAT'S AWESOME! YOU'RE GOING TO BE FIRST ON ORBIT!"

Tommy gave a wicked grin and, grabbing the shocked boy's hand to shake it, commented : "Or else, you're going to be the first to serve as target practice for the Neuroi, if your reasoning was valid!"

But a wide smile was already creeping on the lucky officer's face; it was clear that the opportunity of being the first for such an historic achievement was more than enough to counterbalance any risk, the technical ones and the Neuroical ones.

He burst out laughing, and he went over the girls and crushed them in a hug. "Can I have some kiss for good luck! Never mind, I'll get them myself!"

And he began planting firm kisses on the witches' cheeks, ignoring their shocked protests (especially from a certain Gallian one).

The other spacenauts looked at him, smirks playing on their faces. Then Pavel nodded and said : "Surely it wouldn't hurt, having all the luck we can gather!" The other members of the rogue gallery were quick to approve the motion, and joined their friend in the operation, causing other disbelieving shrieks.

Post Scriptum

Ok, I ended the chapter on a rather rascal note, but in real life both astronauts and cosmonauts weren't exactly models of moral behavior, and my characters have the mitigating circumstance of being teens doing a dangerous job, and so they need to joke around some. Don't worry, they wouldn't do anything funny because they're honorable, they just like to see the girls squirm.

On a more technical note, those two flights reflect the Mercury-Redstone flights of Alan Shepard and Gus Grissom, with the second one that parallels the real-life incident that almost caused the astronauts to drown. Since I maintained the Vostok's ejection seat landing, I had to switch to a malfunction that caused the seat to eject too early. Also, after Shepard and Grissom other two suborbital flights were planned, but were scrubbed when, after Gagarin, Titov was launched, and it was decided Mercury needed a man in orbit then and now.

That's all, folks. Keep reading faithfully!


	4. Chapter 3

Here we go, another one.

I can't help but feel I may have bitten more than I can chew with this chapter; if you share this feeling (after reading it, of course), please point it out. I always look forward to constructive critique.

Chapter 3 : Breaking Through

_Open Training Grounds, Vanderberg USAAF Base, Liberion_

"Expulsion in 3... 2... 1..." The seat blazed, and Amedeo in a matter of seconds was fifty yards from where he had started. He was too occupied to try and not black out to enjoy the view, though.

As he rolled downwards, he began unstrapping himself, jumping out as soon as possible. His face was pale, and he sounded quite irritated. "Did I ever tell you how much do I hate this blasted thing?"

The Romagnian couldn't tell what infuriated him the most, the snickers and giggles, or the lone serious answer from Pavel, who simply said : "Yes, about two hundred times, I believe. But I may be wrong!"

While his punch felt the need of burying himself in someone's face, he resisted the urge and merely huffed. "It's like having someone clutching your guts and twisting them around his hand! Sheeesh!"

"All this training can become the difference between a success and a failure!" The heavily accented voice of Hermann Oberth cut in, serious as always. He always had to be the moderator around them.

As Amedeo sat down, he let out a sigh, as if his irritation had suddenly evaporated. "I don't know... perhaps I'm just reacting badly to all of this. I never dreamt of being the first one in orbit, and... Perhaps I can't take it!"

"Nonsense!" It wasn't just the sharp tone that made everyone jump up, it was also the slight fact that it was Perrine who had said that. "This is what you trained for, and you are up to it! It's normal to be scared, but you can't let it gnaw at your insecurities!" she exclaimed, her gaze burning through her glasses.

The young prince looked at her, surprise more than evident. Then he let out a smile. "If you encourage me so, my fair lady, how could I ever disappoint such trust?" Getting to his feet, he followed his words by doing a deep and elaborate bow.

"I appreciate it!" Perrine nodded, ignoring everyone's laughter. But the Romagnian wasn't quite finished : he gently but firmly grabbed her right hand, kissed the air one inch away from it and, looking up to it, said in an exaggeratedly serious voice : "You have my word, everything that lies within my power shall be done to satisfy your desire!"

If anything could have doubled the amount of laughter, that was it. Pavel was laughing too, in its almost motionless way, while Johnny and Tommy were trying (and failing) to strangle themselves. Even Minna herself had a hand covering her mouth, struggling to maintain some decency as commander of the 501st.

The young Gallian, a rather suspicious blossoming of red on her cheeks, remained almost speechless for a second or two, then she regained her composure. Refusing to concede them satisfaction, she answered curtly : "Thank you!" And walked away.

As Amedeo stood there, shaking his head in mirth, Tommy was quick to take advantage of the whole situation and to elbow him. "Nice move!" he blurted out, still grasping for air. "Some more maneuvering, and she'll fling herself into your arms!"

While the joke was not overly appreciated from the girls' part (they were aware of the lingering crush Perrine had for the now-absent Major Sakamoto), his fellow Spacenaut gave him a hard look and announced : "I believe we have taken this far enough, thank you!" And with dignity, he began walking away.

As the others followed suit, Lucchini yawned. "Gosh, am I sleepy!" Turning to the big frame of Yegorov, she flailed her arms and began : "Please..." Pavel's face didn't move an inch, but he knelt over, allowing the small Witch to climb on his back.

Everyone stared at him, as he straightened himself, and as Lucchini's hands instantly went for his chest. "Your back is so comfy... If only you had boobs, it would be perfect!" she declared drifting off to sleep. Still no visible reaction.

Tommy crossed his arms and commented : "You know, I cannot understand why you put up with it!" A murmur and some nodding was the confirmation that he wasn't alone. The Orussian boy would have shrugged, if he hadn't an already fast asleep Lucchini on his back.

"I don't mind. It intrigues me, the fact that she can sleep so much in so many different situations. It's hard to believe she's not from my country, we would understand that!" It was hardly a perfect explanation, but the others shrugged and took it, knowing as they did that their friend was constitutionally incapable of hiding the truth while talking this way.

"What I don't understand is how you can put up with her energy, when she's awake! I try to stay as far as I can from her, but she still manages to drive me barmy!" Wally suddenly spoke up, a grimace protruding from his face.

Yegorov blinked, then he gave him a small, almost shy smile. "I like how she can fill up the hours and even the minutes of the day with such activity! I never thought it could be possible!"

All legs and feet suddenly stopped, and all heads turned towards him. He held their gazes without flinching, patiently waiting. "So, who hit you in the head with a sledgehammer?" Johnny asked in a very serious voice.

When another roar shook the whole base, two workmen at the exit smirked. One declared to the other : "If they laugh some more, you'd think they'd filled up this whole base with goddamned laughing gas!" It earned a solemn nod from his companion.

_Launch Complex 7_

Standing on the small platform that allowed them to peer inside the cockpit, both in white coat, stood the current backup spacenaut for the mission, Johnny, and a young technician, whose slender frame was disturbed only by his prominent nose.

"It seems we made it through the list; we are good!" said the latter, whose Karlsland accent made his phrases almost comical.

"If you say so, Guenter." Johnny nodded in relief, moving his aching shoulders. "Don't know where you were brought on board, but they sure did a hell of a choice!"

His voice wasn't sarcastic at all; every single spacenaut felt much better after working together with Guenter Wendt for a few weeks, and after they had pressured the Tetrarchy and Colonel Toftoy to get him to serve as Pad Leader. Young as he was (barely a few years older than them), his efficiency and his attention to the tiniest details had earned him the respect of every single soul in the base. And his nickname, "Pad Führer", was as good-natured as it was respectful.

"Your trust in myself is touching!" Guenter commented wrily, as they descended the metallic arm.

"We wouldn't want it any other way. We can't make through this if we don't have a single guy here who's not exceptional!" confirmed the prime crew member, Amedeo, who was waiting for them on the other side of the pad. "No matter how time we launched those, there are always at least two hundred things never done in the past; and if the best we can do is to give our own best to assure this things doesn't act up, we must do it... and more!"

The Karlsland man looked at him and assured : "You just explained my way of doing things. If anything should happen... we'll be able to look anyone in the eyes and say that we gave it our best!"

Amedeo grinned and grabbed Guenter's shoulder. "You really lift my spirits up, man! You really do!"

_Above Launch Complex 7_

"T-minus 30 seconds. All systems are green!"

The radio squawking on their ears didn't made the girls' job easier. They were all but consuming their eyes, trying to spot any approaching Neuroi; they were intimately convinced that Amedeo was right, they would come out to stop him.

Between fumes and exhaust smoke, the rocket stood solidly, preparing to reach space. And in the capsule atop, a spacenaut was getting very sweaty. Before being locked in the cockpit, he had looked at the girls and said : "I'm counting on you!"

Yoshika, Lynette, Minna, Erica, Gertrud, Perrine, Charlotte, Francesca, Sanya, Eila. Each was prepared to do her best to protect the Romagnian boy. All that was left was to see if it was enough.

The two screams of "IGNITION!" and of "ENEMY SIGHTED, ONE O'CLOCK!" arrived simultaneously. Between ten or twelve Medium-type Neuroi (they still didn't know why they hadn't sent something heavier) charged towards the roaring booster. And it was clear, this time they wouldn't stay back.

As the efficient war machine that it was, the 501st Wing took the enemy on, blasting away with everything they had. With their usual high-pitched death sound, the enemies began to fall; but the others tried to circle around, looking for an opening to reach their objective.

"Sorry! No stranger allowed!" Charlotte commented, emptying her Thompson on the nearest enemies.

The Neuroi kept on coming, despite the fierce barrage they faced. Yoshika glanced around, confusingly registering the triumphant "WE HAVE CLEARED THE TOWER!" and Amedeo's answer. But behind the glorious sight of the R-7, a glimpse of black made her blood go cold.

"NEUROI COMING FROM NORTH-WEST!" she desperately warned, rushing in to try and stop them. Sana, Lynette and Gertrud quickly followed suit, leaving the others to fend off the diversionary attack.

But perhaps they were already too late. The seven enemies were already close, so close that they could make up their glowing red emitters.

Pushing their Units to the edge of stalling, the four Witches opened fire, tearing through their relatively weak armor. The aliens responded by mutating formation, trying to confuse them and open a path.

Refusing to take the bait, Yoshika and the others scurried to intercept them, their weapons already hot from the rate of fire sustained. Silvery clouds appeared, as the Neuroi lost their cohesion and were destroyed.

When the very last one followed its companions, Lynette sighed in relief and said : "Done. They're gone, all six of them!"

Sanya, losing for a minute her composure, spoke up : "But... there were seven of them!"

Their horrified reactions were blocked before the beginning by a terrible cry. Not coming from their friends (who had dispatched the last enemy on their side), but from the radio. They turned around to see the last Neuroi, busy firing what seemed a not common beam of energy. Not at the engines or the fuel tanks, which would have ended the mission once and for all, but at the canopy that protected the capsule.

The canopy was intact, which meant the beam was something completely new. And new was the sound of pure agony that screeched through their headphones.

_Inside Vostok 3_

It had taken all of Amedeo's resolve to keep his focus on the launch, and to avoid listening in to the air battle raging all around him. He had been quite surprised : it was not the first brush with death for him, yet he had found out he was not as cool as he thought.

As the cockpit shook around him, while the rocket propelled it towards the sky, his attention had nonetheless wavered when he had heard Sana ask a question in a tone that was completely foreign to her.

The spacenaut had just registered the fact, and its consequence (at least fifteen more heartbeats per minute), when the world suddenly hummed and turned reddish. And painful : as if a lightning had erupted in his skull, his brains twitched, consumed by a torment beyond any description.

His scream, that no amount of self-control could have held back, echoed in the capsule, as its shaking became more violent. Had he been able to think, he would have realized that in his condition his ability to keep steadied the rocket through the Control Plate was plummeting, and the booster was reacting alarmingly fast.

But he couldn't think, he couldn't do anything but scream; his limbs were moving erratically, and he wasn't controlling them.

In the purple nightmare that he was, he (or perhaps someone who wasn't feeling the pain) felt as if a cold laughter went with the pain; as if a malevolent entity was torturing him through all this red, that would also become the color of his death, when the uncontrolled R-7 would blow up like a gigantic firework.

Again, he didn't, couldn't control himself. Beyond everything, beyond the torment, beyond this red barrier that encircled him, something inside him reacted. And exploded in two anguished letters : "NO!"

A surge of something blazed through his veins, and the red pain suddenly subsided. He gasped, trying to get some air in his screaming lungs, feeling exhausted and extremely confused.

The harsh words of Pavel helped him regain touch with reality. "Vostok! Vostok, can you hear me?"

Trying to stop his heart from bursting, and trying to focus again, Amedeo was barely able to answer : "Vanderberg, Vostok. I... I don't know what happened, but now I've regained control. How do I look?"

The reply made him sigh. "Glad to hear it, Vostok. The telemetry went off the charts, but we think... yes, we think you're still a go, if you think you can do it. Surgeon's not happy about your data!"

His reasoning part took over again, and he briefly considered how he felt. He was pretty much banged up, his head still hurting, but the pain was a mere remembrance of the agony felt before, constantly diminishing. And his heart now had decided to obey him, and steady his frenzied beating.

Nodding, he exclaimed : "Roger. I'm not as good as I'd like, but I am go!"

The next comm arrived quite hesitantly : "Vostok, are you positive? Repeat, can you confirm you're go?"

Evidently there were a lot of worried and uncertain faces in the bunker; he could hardly blame them. Nonetheless he strongly confirmed : "Affirmative! I'm going to be alright!"

But his irrational part was not so sure; pointedly, it was still trying to get a grip on what the hell had transpired. What had happened? What was that red stuff? And the surge he had felt?

_Above the Launch Complex_

Confused would be a lie.

Completely lost would have been a tolerable approximation of how the Witches were.

Because the Romagnian wasn't the only one around to don't know what the hell to think about this mess.

The Neuroi had steadied its position alongside the booster, while continuing to spout that freaky beam. And they didn't need to have Amedeo's scream reverberate in their ears and to see the R-7 shudder and shake, to add up what was his plan.

They had desperately tried to reach a position from where they could have shot down the Neuroi safely, without shooting themselves (bad idea) or the tons of RP-1 and LOX in the fuel tanks (worse idea).

But before they could reach such a point, as the rocket's engines had begun to burn erratically, something completely absurd had happened.

While a desperate, roaring "NO!" pierced their eardrums, a bright white light erupted from the capsule, and followed the reddish beam right to its possessor. With a flash and an eruption of silver fragments, the alien was pulverized in a heartbeat. And the scream had stopped, while the rocket gradually steadied itself.

As it kept climbing, nearing the point where the four strap-on boosters would separate from the main body, all ten Witches could only kept staring at where it had been, the weapons hanging limply from their hands, their eyes bigger than life.

"_Nom de Dieu_!" was at last the only thing Perrine, shocked and confused beyond belief, could take out from her throat.

"What... does this mean?" Yoshika asked dumbfoundedly.

Post Scriptum

Well, there we go.

I couldn't help but decide to throw in a much younger Guenter Wendt, the legendary Pad Leader of many American space missions. I hope my rendition will give a positive portrayal of him.

As hinted before, with the first orbital launch come new problems. And as you see, there is much yet to learn, both in the technology they use, and in the magic they take advantage of. Not to mention the strange abilities demonstrated by the Neuroi, but I think we are accustomed to see them showing off odd powers. And it's not going to be the last time, this is just the appetizer!


End file.
